NEW ZEALAND LIBRARIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22432, 29 November 1934, Page 8

NEW ZEALAND LIBRARIES

Nobody would doubt, to-day, the necessary function which the public library has in any community, and with the general conclusions in the report on New Zealand libraries which has been prepared by Mr Munn, representing the Carnegie Corporation, and Mr Barr, of the Auckland public libraries, there wjll be agreement in the Dominion. These conclusions are not unduly flattering to the esteem of a country which takes a certain pride in itself as well-educated and wellread. The main burden of the report is that unsatisfactory conditions prevail, which can be corrected "with reasonable effort and expenditure." The cardinal sin of New Zealand public libraries is, in the opinion of Mr Munn, that they are not "free." Dunedin is the only centre, and Timaru the only other town of considerable population, in which a free lending service is maintained, whereas in Great Britain and the United States, it is stated, the free system is the rule. But if Dunedin is distinctive in its possession of a public library in the fullest sense of the word, the authors of the report are emphatic in denying its citizens any cause for complacency on that fact. The City Council, it is stated, having wisely* established free library service, should give to the institution sufficient support to enable the fullest advantage to be obtained from it. The difficulty here arises that many ratepayers, having of necessity accepted their share of financial responsibility for the maintenance of the library, regard it as "an exclusively recreational service," for which subscription fees should be charged, while as many more maintain that the supply of fiction should be increased in order that they may depend entirely on the public library for the provision of their reading matter. In their comments on this problem, the co-authors of the report are a little less' than convincing. "The lending library," they state, "does contain too high a percentage of novels, but it does not contain too many of them," the contention of course being that the fiction department should be built up without any limitation of the expenditure on non-fiction works. But in another paragraph approval is expressed of the decision of the City Council to increase the percentage of non-fiction purchases, with the purpose of making the library more of an educational and cultural influence in the community, and elsewhere the restriction of fiction lending is condemned by inference on the ground that, the municipal finances being in "a relatively sound state," the city can well afford to provide "a supply of good books which will more nearly meet the demand." These remarks are open to interpretation as favourable to a policy of increasing the library levy on civic funds sufficiently to enable a more extensive fiction lending department to be established. They evade the question whether it is desirable or necessary, in a city which is well served with other lending libraries and bookshops, for the public library to attempt to meet all the demands of a section of its patrons for fiction. As to the qualification that " good books " should be provided, this cannot receive any very serious regard in the case of the demand for and supply of fiction. There are literally thousands of works of fiction published in Great Britain each year, and many of them, if not most, are " good books " by the catholic critical standard of one section or another of the reading public.

Should the Dunedin Public Library attempt to provide a sufficient variety of " good " novels, in sufficient numbers to meet the public demand, the expense involved would be so great as to cripple the library in fulfilling those functions for which, in the opinion of thoughtful people, it is mainly in being. It may be admitted that the City Council could increase its appropriation to the library to the public benefit, but it is difficult to see that any increase would be justified which was absorbed in providing considerably larger numbers of ephemeral works of fiction for the recreation of the people. Indeed, the report as a whole scouts any such assumption. It is concerned, in its wider aspects, principally with the need to replace a somewhat haphazard library system in New Zealand with one which would co-ordinate the activities of the libraries in town and country districts. Many of the suggestions in this portion of the report should prove of extreme value to. those bodies concerned with library administration in the Dominion, and they certainly indicate that the time is ripe for the introduction of a systematic policy, in which the Government, university colleges, urban and rural communities would each have their part.